Cyclonic vacuum cleaners have been developed that utilize one or more cyclonic cleaning stages. Each cyclonic cleaning stage may have its own dirt collection chamber. Cyclonic vacuum cleaner that have a cyclonic cleaning stage comprising a plurality of cyclones in parallel are also known. Such cleaning stages may have a dirt collection chamber for each cyclone, or a single common dirt collection chamber for all of the cyclones in the stage. In all such cases, the frequency with which the vacuum cleaner must be emptied is based on the capacity of the dirt collection chamber.
Various types of vacuum cleaners are known in the art. The vacuum cleaner that may be selected for a particular application will vary depending upon a number of factors. For example, vacuum cleaners that are used for cleaning an office or a residence require a large capacity dirt container and maneuverability. In order to increase the dirt capacity of a vacuum cleaner, the size of the dirt collection receptacle must be increased. Increasing the size of the dirt collection receptacle may result in the overall size of the vacuum cleaner being increased to such an extent that the maneuverability of the vacuum cleaner decreases.